Wines of Jerez — fino, manzanilla and the sherry triangle

• Flor — a layer of living yeast that sits on the wine in the cask. It keeps air off the liquid and gives fino its sharp, almond smell. It is yeast, not bacteria.
• Albariza — the white chalky soil of the best vineyards. It holds winter rain and throws light back onto the vine in summer.
• Solera — rows of barrels. Young wine tops up older wine. The age on a bottle is an average, not a single harvest year.
• Palomino — a white grape, the one used for almost all dry sherry (fino, manzanilla, amontillado, oloroso). It is not a brand and not a style. Pedro Ximenez and Moscatel are different white grapes, used for the sweet wines.

Fino is pale, dry and light. It is the everyday aperitif in Jerez and El Puerto. Serve it cold. It does not keep for weeks once opened the way a red does.

Manzanilla is the Sanlucar version of that same biological ageing. The bodegas sit by the Atlantic. The glass often tastes a little saltier. Only Sanlucar may use the name.

Amontillado starts under flor, like a fino, then the yeast dies back and air does the rest. Nutty, amber, still dry unless the label says otherwise.

Oloroso never grows a proper flor. It ages in contact with air from the start. Darker, broader, walnut and wood. Dry unless blended sweet.

Palo cortado is the scarce one: the nose of an amontillado with the body of an oloroso. You will not find a cheap supermarket own-label that is the real thing.

Pedro Ximenez (often written PX on a list) is the sweet, black, raisin wine from sun-dried grapes. Moscatel is the other sweet line, more floral. Those two are the wines that go through pasificacion — grapes laid out in the sun. Fino and oloroso do not start that way.

Palomino — the white grape — is picked, pressed and fermented until the juice is dry wine, with no leftover sugar. The cellar then chooses a path. Wine that will become fino or manzanilla gets a small dose of grape spirit and is left under flor. Wine that will become oloroso gets a higher dose, so the yeast cannot live, and ages with air. Both families then move through the solera: a little is drawn from the oldest row of barrels and the gap is filled from the row above.

Not every barrel stays fino. Some lose their flor and darken. Those lots can become amontillado. That is a decision in the cellar, not something you watch happen on a tour.

Sweet Pedro Ximenez and Moscatel are a different job. Those grapes are laid out in the sun until they wrinkle, then pressed. The thick, sweet juice is aged in its own soleras. Ordinary fino and oloroso do not start that way. The sun-dried grapes are the dessert wines.

Jerez is the main town: bodegas, a horse school if you want it, and the railway. El Puerto is the bay town, a shorter walk from some cellars to the water. Sanlucar is manzanilla and the river mouth; the light and the bodegas feel different. One booked house is enough.

Chipiona, Rota, Trebujena, Chiclana and Puerto Real grow grapes and keep smaller cellars. They are on the wider map. They are not a second triangle. If you already know brandy, the same three towns age Brandy de Jerez in old sherry casks. That is a second glass in the same bodega, not a second journey.